“Ellen” came out as gay almost 30 years ago. Television is not the same

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CNN
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In the months before the 1997 premiere of “The Puppy Episode,” the breakout episode of Ellen DeGeneres’ hit comedy series “Ellen,” rumors swirled that the comedian and her fictional counterpart would come out as gay.

The anticipation grew as the air date approached. An early script for the episode was leaked. The comedian has teased this information in interviews. DeGeneres herself appeared on the cover of Time a few weeks before the episode premiered. So when the time for “The Puppy Episode” finally came, viewers couldn’t bear to hear another second until Ellen Morgan’s character said those two words.

AND Stillthey had to wait. At the top of the episode, Ellen’s friends become impatient with her as they wait for her to come out of the bathroom.

“Ellen, are you leaving or NO?”

“Yes, stop picking on us and leave already!”

Ellen pokes her head around the door and her friends start to get impatient.

“What happened, I have a whole hour!” – kidding.

It’s a joke-filled, hour-long episode of “Ellen,” full of meta nods to Ellen’s sexuality. Until “The Puppy Episode”, the character rarely dated and mostly resisted romance, deviating from sitcom conventions of the time and frustrating network executives. The episode’s title apparently came from a comment made by former Disney CEO Michael Eisner after he suggested that if Ellen didn’t go on dates with men, maybe she could at least adopt a puppy.

Ellen Morgan never got that puppy, but the episode made history when Ellen became one of the first non-gay main characters on TV. Although “Ellen” was canceled after five seasons, “The Puppy Episode” continues. Since its premiere, scientists have analyzed its impact in dozens of papers, opening the door to future successful sitcoms like “Will & Grace” and “Modern Family” starring gay men.

Dava Savel, co-showrunner of the fourth season of “Ellen,” has written dozens of television episodes over her long career. She’s still chasing the “lightning in a bottle” she found in “The Puppy Episode.”

“I think this episode really touched a very sensitive button in this country,” she told CNN. “That’s why it worked – because it was real.”

Work on “The Puppy Episode” began with DeGeneres.

The comedian invited the writers to dinner before the fourth season and announced that she wanted her character, Ellen Morgan, to come out as gay. (Her co-workers knew that DeGeneres was gay, although she had not yet appeared on the national stage.)

“It all started with her wanting to be true to herself,” Savel said. “Imagine not being able to be who you really are. My character is this, and this is who I am.” Often the characters blend into the person playing them and vice versa.”

After getting approval from Disney TV executive Dean Valentine, Savel and her three co-writers on the episode went to work interviewing gay “Ellen” writers and cast members about their own coming out experiences. It was a risk, but one they were happy to take as they planned the season and path to Ellen’s adoption.

“It was an established character on a big show – one of the biggest they had – and it either succeeds or it all falls apart,” she said.

The writers had certain requirements for ABC: It had to be an hour long and air after “preview week,” a period in which networks set advertising rates for their series based on viewership. Episodes aired during the shows are famous for staging publicity stunts intended to attract above-average viewership – Ellen’s exposure couldn’t have come off as “unjustified,” Savel said.

To feel earned, the writers kept dropping breadcrumbs throughout the season until Ellen finally confronted her sexuality. There are plenty of gay innuendos in the first episode of Season 4: When a character says the word “gay,” a microwave or doorbell goes off, Savel said. In one scene, Ellen sings “I Feel Pretty” from West Side Story, stopping just before reaching the “gay” lyric. Throughout the season, Ellen visits a group of psychiatrists who find out why she feels so insecure and unhappy, even though she constantly feels empty.

Only after meeting Susan, an openly gay woman played by guest star Laura Dern, does Ellen finally feel comfortable coming out. After meeting at the beginning of the episode, there is immediate chemistry between them. After confessing to her latest therapist – this time played by none other than Oprah – that she has feelings for Susan, Ellen rushes to the airport to be reunited with her beloved, finally feeling comfortable expressing something she’s never been able to say.

“I can’t even say the word,” says Ellen in a key scene in the episode, clearly frustrated at her inability to express her feelings. “Why can’t I say that word? …What’s wrong, why do I have to feel so ashamed? I’m 35 years old. I’m so afraid to tell people this.”

And finally, inadvertently passed into the microphone at the airport gate, she arrives: “Susan, I’m gay.”

The live episode was watched by over 42 million viewers, a significant increase in viewership compared to the rest of the season.

The episode generated the expected reaction – “letters, death threats,” Savel said; and ABC’s Alabama affiliate refused to air the episode, but the hate was drowned out by a slew of letters from gracious fans who said the episode gave them the courage to come forward too.

Savel saw the impact firsthand. After winning an Emmy for co-writing “The Puppy Episode” in 1997, she went backstage with the other writers and DeGeneres to meet the press. But along the way, they encountered lines of caterers and waiters serving the event, who stopped their work to applaud and congratulate the “Ellen” group. “It still makes Savel cry,” she said.

“We were soaring,” Savel said. “Those moments of truth – that’s what it was all about.”

Rachel Loewen Walker, an assistant professor of women’s and gender studies at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, still shows “The Puppy Episode” to her students, many of whom didn’t know DeGeneres once starred in a sitcom.

“(The episode) was a pivotal moment in queer representation on screen, especially because of its context: the much-loved Ellen Degeneres was, in fact, gay,” Loewen Walker told CNN. “Her appearance was more than just an on-screen story. It made it real in a way that sitcoms often don’t get to participate in everyday life.”

She said Savel and other writers were fired after season four as “Ellen” entered a new phase. Season five featured a newly confident Ellen who went on dates, found a serious girlfriend, and enjoyed life as a desperate gay woman. (Throughout the season, ABC, against DeGeneres’ wishes, included parental advice in episodes containing gay content.) The “new” Ellen was a sea change from the demure heroine, who had actively avoided romance earlier in the series.

Ratings for the new season dropped, and “Ellen” was canceled in 1998. (ABC never said much, but Loewen Walker and others who studied the show’s impact concluded that the series was “too gay” for the network at the time. )

DeGeneres returned to television in 2001, playing a fellow gay man on a short-lived CBS comedy series called “The Ellen Show.” She no longer wanted to play a fictional version of herself, instead launching a successful daytime talk show in 2003.

“Looking back at ‘Ellen,’ I feel like (DeGeneres) shouldered such a huge burden for so many future queer characters,” Loewen Walker said. “This absence appears to have meant that many others may have been present.”

“The Puppy Episode” did something that is still unusual on television — it took a beloved character that had been painstakingly developed over several seasons and turned her fictional life upside down. Ellen Morgan grew from the bumbling, sweet “girl next door,” as network executives often described the character, into a confident, charismatic, unapologetic gay woman.

Just a year later, “Ellen’s” influence was evident. When “Will & Grace” premiered a year after “The Puppy Episode,” main character Will and his flamboyant friend Jack didn’t have to come out the way Ellen did — the characters were portrayed as gay in the pilot episode. More than a decade later, couple Mitchell and Cameron and their adopted daughter Lily charmed audiences as key members of the Emmy-nominated ensemble “Modern Family.” Currently, there are shows that focus exclusively on young queer characters, such as the Netflix mega-hit teen series “Heartstopper.”

But since “Ellen,” the number of lesbians on television has made somewhat less progress, Loewen Walker said. Characters like Arizona Robbins on “Grey’s Anatomy” and many of the women on “Orange Is the New Black” were lesbians from the moment they were introduced, and shows like “The L Word” had an almost entirely lesbian cast. However, these characters often experienced violence and tragedy or, in the case of the original version of “The L Word”, were criticized for falling into stereotypes or offensive misconceptions about lesbians.

“It’s still rare to see lesbians in this cable comedy spot,” Loewen Walker said. “Modern Family has truly brought two gay men into our homes, but I can’t think of any lesbian or queer woman who has received the same family-friendly welcome.”

But DeGeneres received such a reception as a talk show host, beloved by millions of viewers for her celebrity jokes and lavish gifts for ordinary people. Much of that goodwill was lost when reports accused her of running a toxic workplace. (DeGeneres addressed this jab with mixed results on a recent Netflix stand-up special, which she said was her last.)

Savel has not worked with her since 1997, although he remembers that DeGeneres was a “tough”, demanding boss who “showed his good side”. But “The Puppy Episode” will always be part of DeGeneres’ legacy.

“She is still forever frozen in this episode as a champion for people – oppressed gays in the closet,” Savel said. “You could say you won an Emmy and a Peabody. It’s more than that. The whole country remembers when it happened.”